While litany as a formal element of worship is often the preserve of high church communities, it has a long, deep and colorful place in the history of faith. Normally a form of call-and-response prayer, from its earliest days in cities like Antioch, the Christian faithful took litany into the streets in processions at moments of peril or celebration. If litanies today may not always conform to ancient notions of prayer, they can serve as powerful, rhythmic expressions of the people who take home with them memorable, chant-like refrains inspired by scripture. At their best, they are a renewal of expressive public worship as depicted in the Psalms and echoed spontaneously today in many Pentecostal, African and African-American congregations.
The Practice of Litany
Just as choral anthems or the public reading of scriptures require preparation, so also does litany. There are abundant resources available on the internet and in libraries to select apt material. But better still is to find someone with a lyrical voice in the congregation who can compose original lines appropriate to the occasion and the community. If borrowed material is in hand, best to adapt it to the context with attention to language for God, archaisms, preaching themes, seasons of the year or even refinement of expression. Hardly anything, however incisive or eloquent, is off-the-shelf ready for a specific circumstance.
The assignment of voices for the call and response is worth pondering. The one-and-the-many pattern is common practice for convenience’s sake, but its weakness is overuse. Many other effective combinations that raise the wakefulness of participants are possible: e.g. using choir/worship team, scattered solo ‘call’ voices, a handful of ‘call’ voices from a balcony, alternating men and women. What is important is that there be contrast in the vocal quality of assigned roles. (Asking the halves of the congregation to answer each other lacks this inherent variety.)
Once assignments are made, asking the principals to prepare their lines is paramount. Lifting up and projecting the voice is a learned practice and becomes an embodiment, a vocal expression, of Gospel itself. Reciting the ‘call’ lines with understanding and appreciation for lyricism and nuance inspires the mass response which follows.
Lastly, litany belongs to the people as prayer and as united reflection. It is the breath of the community elicited by encounter with the ineffable. By turn it binds the faithful together in grieving self-recognition, in reclaiming the signs of divine stirring, in shared pleas, and in fixing aspiration on the worthiest landmarks for the heart’s journey. In that exercise, the congregation rises to wakefulness and to collective engagement.